It was probably one of the most anxiety-filled periods of time, I think, in the lives of the people who were assembled here yesterday. The minutes passed like days. And the President was very concerned about the security of our personnel. That was what was on his mind throughout. And we wanted to make sure that we were able to get through this and accomplish the mission.

But it was clearly very tense, a lot of people holding their breath. And there was a fair degree of silence as it progressed, as we would get the updates. And when we finally were informed that those individuals who were able to go in that compound and found the individual that they believe was Bin Laden, there was a tremendous sigh of relief that what we believed and who we believed was in that compound actually was in that compound and was found. And the President was relieved once we had our people and those remains off target.

9.14am: Obama got a standing ovation by Democrats and Republicans at a White House dinner last night.

If the Pakistan government or the army had this intelligence, why did we not take out Bin Laden ourselves? Why did we have to rely on the Americans coming over from their airbases in Afghanistan? Equally disturbing is the tremendous level of distrust the US has for the Pakistanis, which led it to jam the radars during the duration of the operation.

There is not just confusion that prevails in Pakistan, but also a national depression at the loss of national dignity and self-esteem as well as sovereignty. There is no answer to these questions and this simply allows allegations from the West and from India to go unchallenged that Pakistan has been protecting Bin Laden and other terrorists; that Pakistan knew he was here and kept him safe.

The president, the prime minister and the army need to address this immediately and if, as they claim, they had the intelligence that led to the killing of Bin Laden, why it was not done by Pakistani forces? Until this happens, Pakistan will suffer a great loss of credibility – and this from a country that has the fifth biggest army in the world and a hefty defence budget.

The reason we will not get these answers, of course, is that we have the most corrupt and incompetent government in our history.

#binladen neighbour: when the kids hit a cricket ball into the compound, they weren't allowed to retrieve it but were given money instead.

10.31am: The Pakistani press is mainly concerned with two issues – how Bin Laden's death on Pakistani soil will impact on the country's already precarious security situation, and the likely impact on its relationship with its biggest donor, the US.

While his death [Bin Laden's] is a definite blow to the militants, it provides them with the perfect chance for bloody retribution. The US and its allies — especially Pakistan where bin Laden was killed — will be sure terror targets ...Pakistan had also better watch out. We have been aiding the Americans and have been victims of home-grown terror and militants who have idolised bin Laden. With Pakistan allowing the Americans to conduct counter-terror operations here, we are bound to be targeted in very painful ways …

Whilst we have been allies of the US, we have been very trying partners, picking and choosing the militants we wanted to root out and the ones we wanted to protect. No doubt, in the coming days, Pakistan's exact role in the war on terror and Osama's death will become clearer. It is hoped we will not be on the receiving end of a negative fallout with the Americans, who are in this war for the long haul.

The development means there will be immense pressure on Pakistan on all counts: Falling in line with the US strategy in Afghanistan; keeping US troops and technical equipment on Pakistani soil; a heavier US intelligence footprint.

Pressure has already been ratcheted up by top US officials on Pakistan's alleged support for some Afghan Taliban groups. We can expect more verbal dressing down on that count. There will now also be tremendous pressure on Pakistan to go into North Waziristan. These pressures are not new; what is new is the drastic reduction of space for Pakistan to counter them. That would be the primary concern for Pakistan. The development has left Islamabad, more specifically the military, holding a very poor set of cards.

Osama bin Laden's assassination by the US Special Forces in Abbottabad in the early hours of 2nd May is the latest instance of the predicament that Pakistan has been facing since 9/11 because of its flawed pro-Taliban policy of the 1990s. The reversal of that policy and our alliance with the US in the war on terrorism in the wake of 9/11 brought us into conflict with the Taliban and ultimately led to acts of terrorism throughout the country. On the other hand, despite our alliance with the US, the Americans continue to view us both as an asset and a problem in the struggle against terrorism.

The quite preposterous house should have stuck out like a sore thumb and been the subject of some suspicion on the part of the Mother of All Agencies which routinely bugs people's telephones and has the equipment to pinpoint a cellphone to within 10 metres.

We should be aware that Osama being run to ground in Abbottabad will heighten American suspicions of us, regardless of what we might say. We should also take very serious note of what American leaders are saying about us. While some people might be right in characterising congressman Dana Rohrabacher's saying we have been playing the Americans for suckers as the view of just one conservative, we must recall Secretary Clinton saying: "I'm not saying that they're at the highest levels, but I believe that somewhere in this government are people who know where Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda is, where Mullah Omar and the leadership of the Afghan Taliban is, and we expect more cooperation to help us bring to justice, capture or kill those who attacked us on 9/11."

Truth will out, only this time it will bring great peril to us if we don't shape up.

TTP's spokesman in an audio message released hours after the killing of Osama Bin Laden, said 'Pakistan will be the prime target'.

He said the US had been on a man-hunt for Osama and 'now Pakistani rulers are on our hit-list'.

"We had also killed Benazir Bhutto, we killed her in a suicide attack," the TTP spokesman said, adding, US would be their second target.

10.44am: Lashkar-e-Taiba, the militant group blamed for the 2008 terror attacks on Mumbai, said Bin Laden's "martyrdom" would not go in vain.

A spokesman for its founder Hafiz Mohammad Saeed said he had told followers at special prayers for the al-Qaida leader that this "great person" would continue to be a source of strength and encouragement for Muslims around the world.

"Osama bin Laden was a great person who awakened the Muslim world," Saeed's spokesman told reporters.

"Martyrdoms are not losses, but are a matter of pride for Muslims", Saeed said. "Osama bin Laden has rendered great sacrifices for Islam and Muslims, and these will always be remembered."

10.56am: A handful of Palestinians have gathered in the Gaza Strip to pay tribute to Bin Laden, according to AP.

About 25 people holding pictures and posters of the slain al-Qaida leader rallied outside a Gaza City university on Tuesday. The crowd included al-Qaida sympathizers as well as students who said they opposed bin Laden's ideology, but are angry at the US for killing him and consider him a martyr.

The old flim-flam ("Who, us? We knew nothing!") just isn't going to wash, must not be allowed to wash by countries such as the United States that have persisted in treating Pakistan as an ally even though they have long known about the Pakistani double game—its support, for example, for the Haqqani network that has killed hundreds of Americans in Afghanistan ...

There is not very much evidence that the Pakistani power elite is likely to come to its senses any time soon. Osama bin Laden's compound provides further proof of Pakistan's dangerous folly.

As the world braces for the terrorists' response to the death of their leader, it should also demand that Pakistan give satisfactory answers to the very tough questions it must now be asked. If it does not provide those answers, perhaps the time has come to declare it a terrorist state and expel it from the comity of nations.

11.14am: Up to 18 people were in the compound when it was raided, ISI sources have told the BBC. The Navy Seals took away a survivor thought to be one of Bin Laden's sons, its correspondent in Islamabad Owen Bennett-Jones reported.

One of Bin Laden's daughters witnessed her father being shot, he said. ISI sources also claimed the compound was raided in 2003, he reported.

11.25am: Osama Bin Laden's last wish, according to his will, was that his wives not remarry and his children not join al-Qaida, writes Ian Black.

<
a href="http://www.alanba.com.kw/AbsoluteNMNEW/templates/international2010.aspx?articleid=192850&zoneid=13">Al-Anbaa, a Kuwait newspaper, reported today that the will, marked "private and confidential" is dated 14 December 2001, three months after the 9/11 attacks when US forces were hunting him in Afghanistan.

The four page document, written on a computer and signed by "your brother Abu Abdullah Osama Muhammad Bin Laden," also predicted that he would be killed by the "treachery" of those around him.

Al-Anbaa does not reveal how it obtained the will, or if it was able to authenticate it.

Insights into Bin Laden's thinking include how he listed the assault on New York's twin towers in a sequence beginning with the attack on US marines in Lebanon in 1983, the killing of 19 US rangers serving as UN peacekeepers in Somalia in 1993 and the bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi - by al-Qaida- in 1998.

11.56am: There is a sense of schadenfreude in the Indian press about Bin Laden's discovery in Pakistan. India has long believed that Pakistan has not been sufficiently held to account for atrocities committed by terrorists based on its soil - the most obvious recent example being the Mumbai attacks in 2008. There has also been resentment at the close relationship between the US and Pakistan and the massive amount of aid provided by the formula.

There is a palpable sense of relief in the corridors of power over the fact that Osama bin Laden's killing deep inside Pakistan has exposed Islamabad's links with terrorist groups of all hues and colours.

Pakistan will now have to answer questions, how much did they know about Bin Laden's whereabouts and how long were they sheltering him? Most important, why were they sheltering Bin Laden, if they had such a strategic partnership with the US? Pakistan has taken over $20 billion from the US for the past decade for the war in Afghanistan which was centred around the capture of Osama bin Laden and disruption of Al Qaeda.

By playing such a high stakes double game, Pakistan is in danger of eroding what little relationship they had with the US. It will make it more difficult for the US to use the fig leaf that Pakistan is "cooperating fully" on terrorism.

For Pakistan the killing of bin Laden on its soil is a moment of truth, somewhat similar to the discovery that the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks were launched from its territory, only much bigger in its implications.

In India, which has tried to overcome the public's hostility towards Pakistan over the Mumbai attacks through a series of peace moves under the personal initiative of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, it will certainly be hoped that the death of bin Laden strengthens the hands of those forces in Pakistan who want their state to shut the door on militancy, extremism, and terrorism once and for all.

While it may be tempting to see bin Laden's killing at Abbottabad as confirmation of India's worst fears, New Delhi must resist the temptation to crow, and must push ahead with the peace process with the civilian government of Pakistan.

12.10pm: Tariq Ali, the Pakistani born writer and activist, is convinced that someone inside Pakistan's ISI tipped off the US about Bin Laden's compound.

The only interesting question is who betrayed his whereabouts and why. The leak could only have come from the ISI and, if this is the case, which I'm convinced it is, then General Kayani, the military boss of the country, must have green-lighted the decision.

"In the fields around, potato fields and cabbages patches, there are small bits of charred debris that appear to be from that American helicopter [that went down]. I saw something that was pulled out of a drain a few moments ago that appears to be part of an engine or part of a gun. Children are going around pulling out these bits of debris."

Declan reports that neighbours in the house across the street said the occupants of the compound would send children on errands to the shops. They had no inkling that Osama bin Laden was inside, he reports.

"You can see from the security that surrounds this compound that it would be very easy to hide inside," he says.

On the diplomatic fallout, Declan points out the that Pakistan military academy where the officer corp is trained is within a short walking distance of the compound.

"That really underscores the embarrassment for the Pakistani authorities, and is the focus for these questions coming most vociferously from America, about how Pakistan ... could allow Osama bin Laden to go on living under their noses," he says.

As the line began to break up Declan said there were reports that those injured in the attack had been moved from a military hospital to another hospital.

For years, the agonizing search for Osama bin Laden kept coming up empty. Then last July, Pakistanis working for the Central Intelligence Agency drove up behind a white Suzuki navigating the bustling streets near Peshawar, Pakistan, and wrote down the car's license plate.

The man in the car was Bin Laden's most trusted courier, and over the next month C.I.A. operatives would track him throughout central Pakistan.

It moves on to the moment Seal Team Six struck:

The Seal team stormed into the compound — the raid awakened the group inside, one American intelligence official said — and a firefight broke out. One man held an unidentified woman living there as a shield while firing at the Americans. Both were killed. Two more men died as well, and two women were wounded. American authorities later determined that one of the slain men was Bin Laden's son, Hamza, and the other two were the courier and his brother.

The commandos found Bin Laden on the third floor, wearing the local loose-fitting tunic and pants known as a shalwar kameez, and officials said he resisted before he was shot above the left eye near the end of the 40-minute raid. The American government gave few details about his final moments. "Whether or not he got off any rounds, I frankly don't know," said Mr. Brennan, the White House counterterrorism chief.

And the article also details the reaction in the situation room.

The code name for Bin Laden was "Geronimo." The president and his advisers watched Leon Panetta, the C.I.A. director, on a video screen, narrating from his agency's headquarters across the Potomac River what was happening in faraway Pakistan.

The head of the Navy SEALs, Rear Adm. Edward Winters, sent an email congratulating his forces and warning them to keep their mouths shut.

"Be extremely careful about operational security," he added. "The fight is not over."

1.31pm: As more details of the operation that led to the death of Bin Laden emerge, a few inconsistencies have emerged in the reports of the assault on the compound.

Most significantly, US officials were initially briefing that Bin Laden fired at the US forces, which was reflected in AP reports. By contrast in the latest reports Reuters says "he did not return fire". US officials have said he would have been taken alive if he had not offered resistance but the level of resistance he put up is unclear.

John Brennan, the White House's chief counterterrorism adviser, initially said that one of Bin Laden's wives was killed, after standing between the terrorist leader and US forces. But reports now say she was shot in the calf but survived, while another woman who was being used as a human shield was killed.

Additionally, Bin Laden's son who died in the attack was initially named as Hamza but now reports say it was Khalid who died.

1.36pm: When speaking to journalists neighbours of serial killers often say that the murderer "kept himself to himself".

Al Qaeda will have a difficult time finding a successor. Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden's chief lieutenant, has few of the qualities that would make for a successful leader. He's anti-charismatic. He ran his own Egyptian terror organization, al-Jihad, into the ground.

Anwar al-Awlaki, the Yemeni-American cleric now underground in Yemen, will continue to cause trouble, but it is unlikely that he will ever gain the standing of his Saudi predecessor.

In 1970, blue-collar supporters of President Nixon—including those working to build the new World Trade Center towers—held a rally in Lower Manhattan. When a peace activist appeared to spit on an American flag, the construction workers broke out into cries of "U-S-A, all the way."

Despite widespread backing for the raid, there is a growing demand for the precise legal basis of the US operation to be explained, particularly given the absence of prior debate in the UN security council.

Some are asking was it an "execution" or an "assassination"?...

One area of anxiety is the suggestion that the intelligence needed to locate Bin Laden's refuge might have been obtained through torture of suspects detained at Guantánamo Bay or other secret holding centres.

Whether or not the Pakistan government authorised the assault on its territory might technically affect the legality of the operation under international law.

3.33pm: Cameron said Britain's National Security Council met this morning to discuss the aftermath of Bin Laden's death.

The terrorist threat level is already at its highest level, he pointed out.

The prime minister passed on congratulations to Obama for overseeing the operation, to approving here, heres.

Cameron points out that Bin Laden was responsible for the death of more Muslims than people from any other religions.

3.37pm: On Pakistan, Cameron repeated that serious questions need to be asked. He said it was clear that Bin Laden had an extensive support network in Pakistan, but he was also an enemy of Pakistan. The PM stressed the need for cooperation with Pakistan. "We share the same struggle with terrorism," the prime minister said.

The myth of Bin Laden was one of a freedom fighter... the reality was very different. He encouraged others to make the ultimate sacrifice while he lived in luxury, Cameron said.

3.45pm: Labour's leader Ed Miliband presses Cameron on what assurances president Zardari gave him about Pakistan's commitment to tackling terrorism.

Cameron said what matters most is to backing the democratic leaders of Pakistan.

An update from Reuters suggests the Taliban is goading the White House into releasing the photos.

In the Taliban's first comments since the announcement of the raid spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement:

As the Americans did not provide any acceptable evidence to back up their claim, and as the other aides close to Osama bin Laden have not confirmed or denied the death ... therefore the Islamic Emirate consider any assertion premature.

In a statement it said: "The government of Pakistan expresses its deep concerns and reservations on the manner in which the government of the United States carried out this operation without prior information or authorization from the government of Pakistan.

But it insisted that the ISI had been sharing intelligence with the CIA about the compound since 2003.

On members of Bin Laden's family injured in the raid, the ministry's statement said: "They are all in safe hands and being looked after in accordance with law. Some of them needing medical care are under treatment in the best possible facilities. As per policy, they will be handed over to their countries of origin."

The myth of Bin Laden was one of a freedom fighter, living in austerity and risking his life for the cause as he moved around in the hills and mountainous caverns of the tribal areas.

The reality of Bin Laden was very different: a man who encouraged others to make the ultimate sacrifice while he himself hid in the comfort of a large, expensive villa in Pakistan, experiencing none of the hardship he expected his supporters to endure.

On security Cameron said:

Clearly there is a risk that al-Qaida and its affiliates in places like Yemen and the Mahgreb will want to demonstrate they are able to operate effectively.

And, of course, there is always the risk of a radicalised individual acting alone, a so-called lone-wolf attack.

So we must be more vigilant than ever – and we must maintain that vigilance for some time to come.

The terrorist threat level in the UK is already at Severe – which is as high as it can go without intelligence of a specific threat.

We will keep that threat level under review – working closely with the intelligence agencies and the police.

In terms of people travelling overseas, we have updated our advice and encourage British nationals to monitor the media carefully for local reactions, remain vigilant, exercise caution in public places and avoid demonstrations.

class="timestamp">4.46pm: This is Matt Wells taking over from Matthew Weaver. Reuters is now reporting a Time magazine interview with Leon Panetta, the CIA director, in which he admits US officials were concerned that Pakistan could jeopardize the Osama bin Laden operation and "might alert the targets".

In th
The cover of Time magazine from today showing Osama Bin Laden and one from May 1945 showing Adolf Hitler. Photograph: Time
e interview, Panetta said his aides had no absolute confirmation that bin Laden was in the complex.

5.08pm: Here's the link to the Time magazine article, which is well worth a read. It reveals that the US considered a "direct shot" on the Bin Laden compound with cruise missiles, but ruled it out due to the risk of collateral damage. Leon Panetta also reveals that his aides were only 60-80% sure that Bin Laden was in the complex, and the evidence was only circumstantial.

At the key Thursday meeting in which President Obama heard the arguments from his top aides on whether or not to go into Pakistan to kill or capture bin Laden, Panetta admitted that the evidence of Bin Laden's presence at the compound was circumstantial. But "when you put it all together," Panetta says he told the room, "we have the best evidence since [the 2001 battle of] Tora Bora [where bin Laden was last seen], and that then makes it clear that we have an obligation to act."

6.13pm: According to Wikileaks files, US forces were stationed just a few hundred yards from Osama Bin Laden's Abbottabad compound in October 2008. The unpublished cable, seen by my colleague James Ball, suggests the US may have received the intelligence that led them to Bin Laden as early as then. James writes:

The US soldiers were due to perform a routine posting "training the trainers" of Pakistan's 70,000 strong federal military unit, the Frontier Corps.

Abbottabad is home to the Pakistan Military Academy, the country's version of Sandhurst in Britain, and trains officers from across the nation. The academy is streets away from where Bin Laden was tracked down and killed.

The information about the US troops is contained in the account of a meeting in Washington between then deputy secretary of state John Negroponte and Pakistan's foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, discussing security co-operation and concerns across the country.

6.53pm: The first opinion poll to be released since Obama ordered the operation against Bin Laden has been released. The Ipsos poll reports four in 10 Americans say their views of Obama improved after he ordered Sunday's successful military operation in Pakistan. According to a Reuters report of the poll, 39% of Americans said their image of Obama's leadership had improved, while 52% said it had not changed and 10% said it had worsened.

class="timestamp">7.04pm: This is Ben Quinn taking over the news blog.

The latest briefing on the bin Laden operation is taking place at the White House.

7.05pm: Bin Laden was unarmed when he was shot by US special forces, Jay Carney, a White House spokesman, has told a press briefing.

"Resistance does not require a firearm," said Carney.

7.09pm: "It's fair to say it's a gruesome photograph," White House spokesman Jay Carney has said of the photograph (or photographs) of the dead Bin Laden.

Carney is meanwhile coming under pressure from reporters at the briefing. They want to know why Bin Laden was not taken alive if he was, as they have now been told, unarmed.

"He resisted. The US personnel on the ground handled themselves with the utmost professionalism and he was killed in an operation because of the resistance that they met," added Carney.

7.21pm: "We have anticipated a backlash, a desire, if not the ability, to exact some sort of revenge," said Carney of the possibility that al-Qaida might hit back following the killing of its leader.

7.29pm: It's not just in the Gaza strip where Bin Laden is being mourned. Reuters has this from the Sudanese capital, Khartoum:

Around 1,000 people on Tuesday gathered in the centre of the Sudanese capital Khartoum to praise the late al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, chanting "Death to America".

A radical Islamist party had called for a mass prayer to honour the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 plane attacks in the United States who was killed in a U.S. operation in Pakistan.

Mostly
A gathering in Khartoum remembering Bin Laden. Credit: AFP/Getty Images
men dressed in traditional white robes, some of them arriving in expensive cars, gathered on a square in the centre of Khartoum to attend the prayer and denounce the killing of bin Laden. Veiled women prayed separately in a corner of the square.

After the prayer, several radical Sunni Muslim clerics praised the al Qaeda leader in speeches and called on Arab leaders to fight the United States, widely seen in the region as a supporter of Israel and biased against Muslims.

"Islam is calling to fight America because it supports Israel and the Jews," Sheikh Abu Zaid Mohammed Hamza told the gathering also attended by junior members of the ruling northern National Congress Party (NCP).

"We hope that all Arab presidents will become like Osama bin Laden," he said, while some in the crowd chanted "jihad" (Holy War) and "Death to America"."Osama bin Laden is our brother," said Sheikh Abdul Hai Youssuf, another hardline cleric.

Bin Laden lived in Sudan for five years, arriving in 1991 after falling out with Saudi Arabia's ruling family over the kingdom's participation in the U.S.-led campaign to end Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's occupation of Kuwait.

At first, he found a haven under Sudan's Islamist government of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir. But he left in 1996 as U.S. and international pressure on Sudan mounted.

Many Sudanese have still positive memories of bin Laden because he invested in the African country and stood up against the United States which imposed sanctions on Sudan and bombed in 1998 the El Shifa medicine factory in Khartoum.

7.37pm: Some more details now from that White House briefing earlier. Reuters also picks up on the change in the official US narrative about the fate of bin Laden's wife:

Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was not armed when U.S. special forces stormed his compound in Pakistan but he did resist before he was shot, White House spokesman Jay Carney said on Tuesday.

Carney said bin Laden's wife "rushed the U.S. assaulter" and was shot in the leg but not killed, contrary to what a White House official said on Monday.

Carney declined to offer further details on bin Laden's behavior during the raid. Resistance did not require a firearm, he said.

U.S. forces faced a firefight throughout the 40-minute raid. "We expected a great deal of resistance and were met with a great deal of resistance. There were many other people who were armed in the compound," Carney said.

The killing of bin Laden was not likely to affect the U.S. timetable for bringing American troops out of Afghanistan, Carney said, adding that the goal of starting a drawdown in July remained.

7.44pm: David Cameron's assertion today that Pakistan must answer questions about the "support network" that allowed Bin Laden to live in such a populated area of the country is covered here by my colleague Nicholas Watt.

As British sources indicated that elements within Pakistan's ISI intelligence service may have shielded the al-Qaida leader in Abbottabad, the prime minister told MPs that Britain would be asking Islamabad to explain his presence in a large compound so close to the capital.

Cameron said: "The fact that Bin Laden was living in a large house in a populated area suggests that he must have had a support network in Pakistan. We don't currently know the extent of that network, so it is right that we ask searching questions about it. And we will."

7.51pm: Expect 'fake' Osama bin Ladens to pop up around the world in the coming years, says Mark Lowenthal, a former assistant director of the CIA.

He has told the BBC in an interview that a certain section of the world's population would never believe that the al-Qaida leader had been killed.

Overall, Lowenthal said that the operation was a major success, though he added that no operation of this kind comes without glitches.

"This one glitch when a helicopter stalled, and yet they had plans to have enough space to take everyone else out on the other helicopters."

7.55pm: Rebekah Sanderlin, the wife of a US soldier who served in (and survived) deployments in Afghanistan, has an interesting take on the celebrations outside the White House following Bin Laden's death.

And so, together, my husband and I stayed up to watch the breaking news about the death of Osama bin Laden on television. We were just as excited as everyone else, perhaps even more so. For us Bin Laden's death was more than a national victory — it was a personal triumph, the taking back of years of our lives and vindication for all the friends we've lost.

But watching the spontaneous celebrations outside the White House and ground zero, we were struck by the paradox inherent in the cheering crowds. People, mostly in their 20s and 30s — the same age as our friends who have died and been forever injured — were cheering, "We got him!"

We.

For nearly a decade of war, it hasn't felt much like "we." During this, the longest war in our nation's history, a war fought by less than 1 percent of the population, the rest of the country has seemed mostly to ignore those of us in the military community, tuning in only for our scandals or deaths.

And so "we," in the context of victory, most accurately applies only to the very small number of men and women who have given more than any of us had a right to ask.

The show of patriotism right now is touching and inspiring and reminiscent of the unity felt by all in the days after Sept. 11, 2001. This truly is a time of national celebration. An evil man who tried to engineer our demise and who caused untold grief for so many is dead, and we should all celebrate that victory.

But this war is far from over, and tough days are still ahead. It is incumbent on we, as a nation, to share in the burden as well.

Giving his take on how US agents will exploit left overs from the Bin Laden raid, he writes that the Pakistani authorities had tried to limit the CIA's freedom of action following the arrest earlier this year of CIA contractor Raymond Davis in Lahore, after he allegedly shot dead two men:

However, as the Bin Laden raid showed, the CIA retained considerable autonomy. Its personnel, contractors, and Afghan auxiliaries operating in Pakistan and the Afghan border region may amount to thousands.

It operates the Reaper drones used to hit militants in the Tribal Areas from Pakistani air bases, and its air wing moves its people around the region independently of the US military or any government.

The most likely explanation for how the American helicopter assault force reportedly refuelled at a Pakistani air base on way to its target is simple that movements of US aircraft in the night across Pakistan have become so commonplace that procedures are in places to prevent this causing incidents.

So as the CIA and ISI survey the scene, their mutual suspicion has, if anything been reinforced. The Americans have the advantage for the time being, but few in Pakistan will have relished what happened in Abbottabad, and the friction caused may prove to be the biggest obstacle to exploiting the leads gained in the raid.

The re
ason Bin Laden's death was a source of such elation is in part because almost every other American response to 9/11 is regarded as a partial or total failure.

Two thirds of the people believe that the Iraq invasion was not worth it, and the country is evenly divided on the issue of whether the invasion Afghanistan is a good idea. The public mostly supports keeping Guantánamo open – but nonetheless concedes that doing so will fuel anti-American sentiment.

So the frustration of the last decade, during which the limits of America's military superiority were tested and found wanting, had their outlet in the murder of a single man at the hands of a crack team of US Navy Seals.

Having effectively declared war on the world it is hardly a surprise that Bin Laden would come to this kind of end.

This was not so much the exercise of American power as the performance of it. Coming eight years to the day after George W Bush landed on the USS Abraham Lincoln to announce "Mission accomplished" in Iraq, news of Bin Laden's death was yet another mediated milestone in this war on an abstract noun. Like the capture of Saddam Hussein, the murder of Bin Laden changes little.

In a piece for the Monitor, he argues that the group has been in "a long, slow period of decentralization and decline" while its grand vision is unlikely to hold the appeal it once did under Bin Laden:

Bin Laden's actual relevance to recent global terrorist operations was limited. Like-minded terrorist groups – the so-called Al Qaeda franchises in Iraq, in Yemen, in North Africa and elsewhere – had put out shingles of their own.

They use the Al Qaeda name and share bin Laden's austere and chauvinistic salafy brand of Islam, but are free agents.

The 16 people murdered by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in a Morocco explosion last week, for instance, didn't die at bin Laden's hands or on his orders. Whether AQIM flourishes or fails has almost nothing to do with bin Laden.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the Yemen-based group that claimed responsibility for sending the failed underwear bomber to the US, is also autonomous and more internationally engaged than the old core of Al Qaeda in Pakistan.

The religious rites were performed aboard the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) in the North Arabian Sea and occurred within 24 hours of the terrorist leader's death, said the [senior defence] official.

"Preparations for at-sea [burial] began at 1:10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time and were completed at 2 a.m.," said the official.

The burial followed traditional Muslim burial customs, and bin Laden's body was washed and placed in a white sheet, said the official.

"The body was placed in a weighted bag. A military officer read prepared religious remarks, which were translated into Arabic by a native speaker," the official added.

Afterward, bin Laden's body was placed onto a flat board, which was then elevated upward on one side and the body slid off into the sea.

The deceased terrorist was buried at sea because no country would accept bin Laden's remains, a senior defense official said.

10.15pm: The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights wants details on the death of Osama bin Laden.

Navi Pillay said the raid on the al-Qaida leader's hideaway "was a complex operation, and it would be helpful if we knew the precise facts surrounding his killing."

Pillay
Credit:
Reuters
(left) has frequently stressed the importance of respecting international law during counter-terror operations, reports the Associated Press news agency.

But in a statement she acknowledged that "taking him alive was always likely to be difficult."

Pillay added had bin Laden been captured he would likely have been charged with the most serious offenses including crimes against humanity.

The pull-out is scheduled to begin this summer while President Obama is due to announce in July the scale of the troop drawdown.

But the Pentagon, resisting major troop withdrawals, is arguing that big gains made by the US and its allies in Afghanistan over the winter would be put at risk if there was a significant cut in troops:

A Taliban commander, among those who escaped from Kandahar prison last week, agreed with the Pentagon assessment, predicting Bin Laden's death would not shorten the war. He told the Guardian: "The Afghans are fighting the foreigners, so killing Bin Laden won't affect anything. The fighting will not stop. We will be just as strong."

A western source in Kabul suggested the short-term impact of the killing could be to fuel the fighting: "They have killed the person of Bin Laden but not the reason why he exists and what he is for. They have destroyed his body, not his cause.

"In fact, they have created another martyr without addressing the fundamental reason why Osama and the movement behind him exists. America is still occupying two Muslim countries and bombarding another."

Michael Semple, who has held extensive talks with the Taliban as a European representative in Kabul and still maintains contacts, said the removal of Bin Laden might open the way for reconciliation with the Taliban.

"There is an interesting conversation going on now. One side says this shows that the Americans will be preparing to leave and we can ride it out. There is another pro-talks and pragmatic point of view that this could be helpful for a settlement, as it gets Osama off the agenda and makes the al-Qaida issue much easier to deal with," Semple said.

Another central question which the cache of data may help answer is the whereabouts of Ayman al-Zawariri, al-Qaida's deputy leader, and the extent to which Bin Laden continued to communicate with the outside world on both strategy and operations, given the widely held belief he was unlikely to have been recently involved in detailed planning of attacks.

The US official familiar with the intelligence operation stressed the process of analysing the documents was at an early stage and would not say yet whether the Bin Laden statements they have discovered were written or recorded on audio or video, or how recent they were, only that they have not been seen before.

"There is a great deal of documents, computers, removable media and writings which have been removed from the compound and a team of analysts and intelligence officers are crawling through it meticulously for leads on potential threat information," he said last night.

11.14pm: A photograph of Osama bin Laden's remains will "ultimately" be released CIA director Leon Panetta has told NBC News.

Panetta said:

The government obviously has been talking about how best to do this, but I don't think there's-- there was any question that ultimately a photograph would be presented to the public. Obviously I've seen those photographs. We've analyzed them and there's no question that it's Bin Laden.

On the question of how much Pakistani authorities knew about the US special forces mission, he had this to say:

The Pakistanis did not know anything about this mission. And that was that was deliberate on our part that this would be conducted as a unilateral mission.

President Obama had made very clear to the Pakistanis that if we-- if we had good evidence as to where Osama bin Laden was located we were going to go in and get him. And-- that's exactly what happened.

So I think the only time the Pakistanis found out about it, frankly, was after this mission had taken place. We had to blow the helicopter, as you know, and that probably woke up a lot of people, including the Pakistanis.